Introduction
A Process Approach to Ethical Judgment Making
Spatio-Cultural Meanings and Ethical Judgments About SE
Methodology
The Research Setting
Indicator | World | Sub-Saharan Africa | Mozambique |
---|---|---|---|
GDP per capita ($) | 10, 201 | 1, 464 | 382 |
Life Expectancy at birth | 72 | 60 | 58 |
Data Gathering
Number of organisations | Occupation/role | Number of interviewees | Number of interviews |
---|---|---|---|
3 Development Aid Agencies | 7 | 8 | |
UN | Women Representative | 1 | 2 |
Head of UNIDO Operations | 1 | 1 | |
WB | Implementation Consultant | 1 | 1 |
Senior Health Specialist | 1 | 1 | |
DFID | Governance and Economic Policy Department | 1 | 1 |
Manager of Projects and Inclusive Growth Policies | 1 | 1 | |
Private Sector Development Advisor | 1 | 1 | |
6 International NGOs | 10 | 10 | |
INGO1 | Coordinator of ‘Grow Campaign’ | 1 | 1 |
INGO2 | Private Sector Investments | 1 | 1 |
INGO3 | Operations Manager | 1 | 1 |
INGO4 | Project Coordinator | 1 | 1 |
INGO5 | Project Manager | 1 | 1 |
INGO6 | Sewing Student Beneficiary | 1 | 1 |
Welding Student Beneficiary | 1 | 1 | |
Industrial Electricity Student Beneficiary | 1 | 1 | |
Buildings Electricity Student Beneficiary | 1 | 1 | |
Electricity Installation Student Beneficiary | 1 | 1 | |
1 Local NGOs | 2 | 2 | |
LNGO | Project Manager | 1 | 1 |
Programme Officer | 1 | 1 | |
2 Government Agencies | 3 | 3 | |
IPEME | Director Of Statistical Studies | 1 | 1 |
Administration and Statistical Studies Assessor | 1 | 1 | |
Ministry of X | Minister of X/Ex-Minister of Y | 1 | 1 |
3 Religious Charities | 7 | 8 | |
R1 | Development Network Management and Programme Liaison Officer | 1 | 1 |
R2 | General Secretariat | 1 | 1 |
R3 | Planning and Development Coordinator | 1 | 2 |
Superior Delegate | 1 | 1 | |
Vocational Courses Manager | 1 | 1 | |
Parish Priest | 1 | 1 | |
Mozambican Member | 1 | 1 | |
5 CSOs | 7 | 7 | |
CSO1 | Accountant | 1 | 1 |
Manager of Communications | 1 | 1 | |
Operations Manager | 1 | 1 | |
CSO2 | Communications and Knowledge Manager | 1 | 1 |
CSO3 | Executive President | 1 | 1 |
CSO4 | President | 1 | 1 |
CSO5 | Executive Director | 1 | 1 |
8 Social Enterprises | 12 | 13 | |
SE1 | Co-founder and General Manager | 1 | 1 |
Sales Manager | 1 | 1 | |
SE2 | Social Entrepreneur | 1 | 2 |
SE3 | Founder and Manager | 1 | 1 |
SE4 | Social Entrepreneur | 1 | 1 |
SE5 | Founding Partner | 1 | 1 |
General Manager | 1 | 1 | |
Credit Analyst | 1 | 1 | |
Beneficiary | 1 | 1 | |
SE6 | Founder and Manager | 1 | 1 |
SE7 | Founder and Manager | 1 | 1 |
SE8 | Chair and Founding Partner | 1 | 1 |
2 MNCs | 3 | 3 | |
MNC1 | Head of CSR | 1 | 1 |
MNC2 | CFO at External Affairs Executive director | 1 | 1 |
General Manager Community Relations and Social Performance | 1 | 1 | |
1 MFIs | 1 | 1 | |
MFI | CEO | 1 | 1 |
4 Development Consultancies | 4 | 4 | |
DC1 | Co-founder and General Manager | 1 | 1 |
DC2 | Founder and General Manager | 1 | 1 |
DC3 | Executive Director | 1 | 1 |
DC4 | Development Consultant for Cross-sector Partnerships | 1 | 1 |
3 Local Universities | 3 | 3 | |
UNI1 | Geographer | 1 | 1 |
UNI2 | Entrepreneurship Lecturer | 1 | 1 |
UNI3 | Anthropologist | 1 | 1 |
2 Newspapers | 2 | 2 | |
NEW1 | Reporter | 1 | 1 |
NEW2 | Founder | 1 | 1 |
3 SE Promoters | 5 | 5 | |
PRO1 | Project Manager | 1 | 1 |
PRO2 | Speaker | 1 | 1 |
Organiser | 1 | 1 | |
Mentor | 1 | 1 | |
PRO3 | Coordinator | 1 | 1 |
3 Xitique Groups | 6 | 6 | |
XWORK | Workplace Xitique member 1 | 1 | 1 |
Workplace Xitique Member 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Workplace Xitique Member 3 | 1 | 1 | |
XFAM 1 | Family Xitique Member 1 | 1 | 1 |
Family Xitique Member 2 | 1 | 1 | |
XWORK T | Workplace Xitique Member Cross-border trader 1 | 1 | 1 |
Data source | Details | Use in analysis |
---|---|---|
Interview data | Transcriptions of 75 semi-structured interviews lasting between 30 and 90 min. This totalled 66 h of audio recordings and approximately 375,000 words | Quotes were used in all three stages to analyse the differences in values articulation work. The transcripts provided a repository of language used to make judgments. This was used to analyse the influence of different spatio-cultural meanings |
Field journals | Reflective notes (from three field journals) and 5 h of reflective audio recordings were used captured during the four field trips. Notes and recordings were made after interviews, meetings or other fieldwork events such as judging at the boot camp or visiting a SE project Each research journal was handwritten and included daily descriptions of fieldwork conducted in Maputo, between 2012 and 2016, and personal reflections: Journal 1–54 pages; Journal 2–60 pages; Journal 3–96 pages | The field notes were useful for capturing additional details about the range of practices people considered SE (Stage 1); differences in the sites that values articulation work was observed (e.g., settings) ethical judgments were made (Stage 2) and for capturing reflexive insights about the interplay between local and global cultural meanings (Stage 3) based on the researcher’s position |
Visual materials | Approximately 900 photos were taken and 3 h of video were shot. This included Xitique ceremonies, organisation’s premises, field trips, university lectures and other events (e.g. debates and workshops) | Visual materials were used in Stage 2 to analyse the settings where interviews or observations were undertaken. They were helpful for visualizing the spatial aspects of where ethical judgments occurred (e.g., in offices, ex-pat houses, places of religious worship, university lecture theatres and community settings |
Documents | Primary data—this included materials produced in the field, for example for lectures and seminars with students in Maputo. It also included materials generated by participants such as posters created by students to summarise their ideas on what SE meant in Maputo Secondary data—printed and online Reports, policy documents and promotional materials supplied by interviewees. Approximately 42 physical documents were analysed in addition to online information comprising websites, newspaper articles and participant online profiles | Documents were used to triangulate the language used in interviews and observations with what was published. This was useful for stage 3 to analyse the influence of global spatio-cultural meanings |
Data Analysis
Findings
Embracing
In this country, social entrepreneurship, if we want to put a label on it, is born spontaneously and not in a structured way. Within communities, people are always doing little things to earn money they need. (Local development consultant)
There are certain values and norms that facilitate certain practices, especially if we consider that there are small communities, large families, scarce resources, and an absent state… (International NGO project coordinator)
Social entrepreneurship is almost everything. We never called it that here… the social is what motivates entrepreneurship. People start these things out of necessity! Social entrepreneurship in a poor country is about people solving their own problems. (Social entrepreneur)
These excerpts illustrate that what is recognised as ethical content is shaped by language related to locally embedded spatio-cultural meanings. It was not only local Maputo residents who used embracing in their ethical judgments of SE. As the following quotes suggest, global resource-rich actors also considered local practices as a form of SE as they provided an informal way to alleviate poverty.Social entrepreneurship here is a matter of survival and need, not of opportunity or growth. (Maputo based co-founder of an entrepreneurship incubator)
I have some difficulty in defining what social entrepreneurship is within the various activities I see. But here there’s no doubt it is born out of need. (International corporation head of CSR)
Embracing was used in ethical judgments to frame SE using locally embedded meanings that reflected the sub-Saharan African context. Embracing was open to a range of practices, such as Xitique, that were used to reduce the effects of poverty upon survival. Reflecting research from other deprived settings, community action is often the only way to meet basic needs whilst also creating mutual benefits (Peredo and Chrisman 2006; Karanda and Toledano 2012). As such, embracing was also used to promote and celebrate locally embedded practices as a form of SE.People need to create their own sources of income. I’m always asking myself where social entrepreneurship begins and ends and what is the commercial or individual aspect. There’s a limit to the term here as in this reality people are interested and willing, but they have to make a living too. (International SE promoter)
Social entrepreneurship is implicit in what people do here, it’s implicit because it promotes collaboration, common thinking. People find a way to solve each one’s problems together. (Local Maputo serial entrepreneur and founding partner of ‘Women Savings Bank’)
There is a social conscience here! People want to contribute to the community and the family and the issue of trust is important. (Public servant)
Social entrepreneurship is from the grassroots! It challenges the microfinance sector because there aren’t interest rates! (Mozambican liaison officer at an international foundation)
Xitique is definitely an initiative of social entrepreneurship and you have to explain that to people. (Local Mozambican general manager of community relations for a multinational company)
These comments illustrate how participants used embracing to express what they saw as good and acceptable (Sayer 2011), and so, the ethical purpose of SE. Embracing encapsulates the desirability of practices that preserved bonds and sustained collective responses to the tensions faced in the local context. As such, it demonstrated how spatio-cultural meanings associated with practices and beliefs present in the local context, such as Xitique and Ubuntu, were used in ethical judgments about SE. There was no mention of individual agency, social transformation and scalability, language typically associated with the global circuit of SE.We have a sort of African socialism, which is one of permanent mutual-assistance in the family, in the community, and in society (Government Official)
Rejecting
Xitique is not a business that’s making money and having a social impact; it’s an informal way of encouraging and facilitating savings. (North-American independent consultant in cross-sector collaborations)
Xitique is not sustainable…but social entrepreneurs like Muhammad Yunus and possibly the inventor of Xitique…they are in fact the ones causing social transformation! (Maputo resident and social entrepreneur)
Our mission is also to identify and distinguish existing high impact social entrepreneurship initiatives in the country. Our (bootcamp) winners are selected based on models which have to be: innovative, high impact, disruptive, scalable, replicable, and sustainable. (Bootcamp organiser)
In these instances, participants drew upon concepts related to spatio-cultural meanings from the global circuit of SE to evaluate and de-value local practices of SE. Accordingly, rejecting drew upon global definitions of SE to criticise the value and efficacy of local practices. Rejecting therefore, involved articulating values such as social mission, transformation, scalability, planning and disruption. These aspirational goals rejected local practices for coping with survival, informality and sustainability. Instead, rejecting promoted the desirability of SE by accessing cultural meanings associated with resource-rich paradigm building actors. Accordingly, it acted to generate distance from informal practices based upon community responses to local issues.Xitique is not entrepreneurship, it is making do for the present day and lacks planning. (Social Entrepreneur)
There’s a place for social entrepreneurship because there’s a place for business […] As opposed to NGOs, a social venture shouldn’t transfer its operations to the local community. A social venture is a business that takes over and grows the country into a more developed nation. I don’t think it’s realistic that the community would assume control of all of these businesses! (North-American social entrepreneur)
There’s a clear separation between for-profits and non-profits. The perspective people wrongly adopt here is that social entrepreneurship is for assisting a community and not an opportunity. (Government official)
SE for me is an activity, an innovation that provides something to society and carries a social outcome. But what exists here in terms of SE is unknown, not recognised. (Public servant)
Integrating
Someone had to have had the idea of Xitique, right? It’s born out of need, and it’s surely innovative. Given the characteristics of what social entrepreneurship is supposed to be Xitique probably is social entrepreneurship, I just never thought about that because it falls outside the classic definition. (CSR Manager, multinational bank)
Xitique is social entrepreneurship, but not in a financial sense, I mean what’s produced are social values and ethical values. (Accountant at a local NGO)
If the members of Xitique are operating autonomously amongst themselves… we probably could call it an intracommunal social enterprise! (Advisor at DFID)
The quotes are illustrative of conversations in which participants drew upon local and global spatio-cultural meanings in their ethical judgments. Integration required awareness of local and global meanings without the aim of seeking to resolve differences. Instead, integrating was used as a source of flexibility rather than indecision. This created a space for linguistic invention, for example as one participant used the term ‘intracommunal social enterprise’, in an attempt to integrate their awareness of local practices with that of global practices of SE. Integrating suggested how change is possible as it created new ways of enacting spatio-cultural meanings, bridging spatial and cultural embeddedness in multiple contexts. This created ambivalence and increased cognitive burden, but also suggested how ethical judgements about what is, and is not, considered good SE practices may emerge and change (Bansal et al. 2018). The following quotes illustrate how integrating was used to enact change by filtering and configuring (Patterson 2014) cultural meanings from global and local sources to promote SE as space of possibility and openness in Maputo.SE is a new concept, but it has been implemented here already. For a long time it was perceived as charity. There’s no legal form for it yet. People used to think that doing good was philanthropy and donating money. (Development Agency)
In my view, social entrepreneurship is more frequent where there is more know-how and people with different natures, origins… different cultures converging. (CSO1)
There are internal entrepreneurial practices that can be adapted through Western input. We utilise western models as references, but in reality there are difficulties in adopting them. There is the social framework here which is different and no legal structure, which is a deficiency. So we need a new model to substantiate social entrepreneurship here. (CSO1)
Social entrepreneurship is a slightly artificial title right? Nobody starts a business thinking ‘I’m going to be a social entrepreneur’. Individuals looking for livelihoods are not saying if what they do is going to be social or not. It just happens! The definition of SE taken in the western context is narrower but when taken in this country then almost everything could technically be classed as social entrepreneurship. (DFID’s private sector development advisor)
There are opportunities here for coupling social entrepreneurship initiatives with CSR programmes. This is gaining momentum and I intend to make the most out of it! (Social Entrepreneur Expat)